Zilber firm changes name, adds Chicago

Towne Investments is opening a Chicago-area office and changing its brand name to Zilber Property Group, the first major changes by the prominent Milwaukee real estate firm since the passing last year of founder Joseph Zilber.

The new office, an effort to further expand the development team’s activity in markets beyond the Milwaukee area, will occupy space in Tri-Center Properties, a three-building, 140,800-square-foot site near O’Hare International Airport that Towne acquired in January. Towne Investments, the brand name for development companies founded by Zilber, is changing to the new name. Both changes mark a milestone for the company after Zilber died in March 2010 at age 92.

The transition of Zilber’s companies has gone well because Zilber created a succession plan before his death, said Jim Borris, president of Zilber Ltd. The company executives and a board of directors now manage the operations.

“We knew Joe well, we knew his business,” Borris said. “Based on the planning and his foresight, it went very smoothly.”

The Chicago office and brand are part of the development team’s growing involvement in the industrial market along Interstate 94, said John Kersey, executive vice president of Zilber Ltd.

“That’s been a focus of ours for some time now, so we’re kind of focusing between O’Hare and Kenosha and Pleasant Prairie,” he said. “It’s been kind of a slow progression for us as we have made a conscious decision to diversify from mainly office properties to industrial properties.”

Mike Powers, Zilber Property director of industrial investments, will lead the Chicago-area office.

Zilber Ltd. and Towne Realty, which operated under the Towne Investments brand name, have played a large role in commercial and residential development in the Milwaukee area for decades. Joseph Zilber founded the two companies more than 60 years ago. He purchased the former Pabst Brewing Co. complex in Milwaukee in 2006 and kicked off its major redevelopment, known as The Brewery, which is still ongoing.

In addition to advancing The Brewery redevelopment project in his final years, Zilber donated money to Marquette University Law School’s Eckstein Hall project. In 2008, he donated $50 million to start the Zilber Neighborhood Initiative, which helps organize and support projects in Milwaukee’s Lindsay Heights and Clarke Square neighborhoods.

The Zilber Property companies own six office buildings in downtown Milwaukee with a combined assessed value of more than $50 million. The companies also build housing across the country through offices in Phoenix; Sacramento, Calif.; Fort Worth, Texas; and three locations in Florida and on three Hawaiian islands, Borris said. Zilber started building housing around Milwaukee in the 1950s, and his companies built houses under the Homes by Towne brand in Cedarburg, Mequon, Muskego and Pewaukee.

The Towne brand name, although useful for marketing efforts around Milwaukee, is less reflective of the company’s more recent activities, Kersey said. Zilber Property in 2004 started its involvement in the industrial market when it began developing the NorthWest Corporate Park and NorthWest Business Park in Elgin, Ill., Kersey said.

Zilber Property developed seven buildings in Elgin in partnership with Interstate Partners LLC. The partners recently sold the Elgin properties and a Pewaukee building to Stockbridge Real Estate, San Francisco, in a deal that included 2 million square feet of building space.

Zilber Property also has invested heavily in buildings and land in the Business Park of Kenosha and the Lakeview Corporate Park in Pleasant Prairie, Kersey said.